Interactive Census Data Sources

American FactFinder | Historic Census Browser | Equal Employment Opportunity File | DataFerrett

• American FactFinder is a data tool produced by the Census Bureau that allows you to find population, housing, business, economic and government data.  One of the primary sources of 1990 and 2000 Census information, American FactFinder allows you to search for data for a wide range of census geographies and then print or download that data.  Below you will find links to and summaries of some of American FactFinder's major features. 
• Fact Sheets
  • Fact Sheets are an easy way to get basic summary information for states, counties, cities, places and ZIP Codes.
• Maps in American FactFinder
  • There are two kinds of maps available in American FactFinder:
    • Reference Maps are a "tool to view the boundaries of census geographies, such as counties, cities and towns, urban areas, congressional districts, census tracts, census blocks and more"
    • Thematic maps are a "tool to view census data in geographical format for all geographies - national to individual census blocks.  Data are available for Census 2000, the 1990 Census, the 1997 Economic Census, and 2002 Population Estimates."
• Data Sets
  • If you need more detailed information that what you can find from Fact Sheets, or if you need information for a geography smaller than a ZIP Code or place, you may need to use a Data Set.  American FactFinder has a wide variety of data sets available that contain different information from various surveys that the Census Bureau has conducted, including the Decennial Census, the American Community Survey, and the Economic Census.  
  • Accessing information in Data Sets is multi-step process.  It involves
    1. selecting the program you want to access data from (e.g. decennial census, economic census, etc.),
    2. selecting the exact data set you wish to extract data from,
    3. choosing the type of table,
    4. selecting the level of geography you wish to examine,
    5. and then selecting the precise data you wish to view.

• This special tabulation allows you to easily find the number of people employed in over 500 occupations.  Data is available for the nation, states, metropolitan areas, counties and places with populations of 50,000 or more. 

• This site contains information from the 1790-1960 censuses down to the county level.  While all of the variables from all of the censuses are not available, this is still an excellent source for census data.

• "DataFerrett is a data extraction software and a data mining tool that accesses data stored in TheDataWeb through the internet. It can be installed as an application on your desktop or use a java applet with an internet browser."
• You can use the DataFerrett to access data from the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control.